Lviv Opinion

Comic book blockbuster seeks to bring 1917 Ukrainian Revolution heroes to post-Maidan audiences
When people think of Ukraine’s long struggle for independence, they tend to focus on the WWII-era insurgent army that fought both Nazis and Soviets, or the Cossack statehood bids of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is perhaps understandable: the romance of Cossack leaders Bohdan Khmelnitskiy and Ivan Mazepa has captivated generations of Ukrainians, while the polarizing figure of WWII insurgency leader Stepan Bandera has cast a shadow over the national identity debate ever since the 1940s. However, prior to 1991, the closest Ukraine actually came to establishing a recognizable modern state was during the epic independence struggle that began in 1917. As Ukraine marks the centenary of those momentous events, a group of comic book artists is attempting to introduce today’s post-Maidan generation to an era of Ukrainian history that has direct relevance to the ongoing hybrid war with Russia.

With Ukrainians now able to explore their European neighbours with little more than their new biometric passports and their mobile phones, we thought we’d help out by offering the 10 must-have travel apps for your phone. Having these handy little helpers in your pocket will take the worry out of your journey and allow you to maximise your relaxing time. To keep a few extra nickels in your pocket (which you’ll need when paying €10 for a beer in London), we’ve made sure that every featured app in this article is free to download. So, happy travels!

Imagine a place where during the Great War, Ukrainian men, women, and children were rounded-up and transported to remote places far from their homes. They had committed no crimes, nor been charged or convicted. They were then forced to spend years living behind barbed wire and providing forced labour. Can you believe that place was Canada? At the time, Canada was at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary and interned over 8,500 Ukrainians at work camps (aka concentration camps). They were forced to work on projects like road- and railway- building or in mines or on farms. Most had their savings confiscated and some never returned home. The rest of Canada’s Ukrainian population – some 80,000 people – were forced to register as “enemy aliens”.

There was a time when Ukrainian animation was considered to be among the best in the world. From hits as early as 1927’s ‘Ukrainianisation’, 1966’s Golden Shoe-winning ‘Little Bear and the One that Lives in the River’ and the spectacularly successful and long-running ‘Cossacks of the Zaporizhia Sich’, to more recent hits such as 1983’s multi-award winning Sirko (Once Upon a Dog) and this year’s inaugural Ukrainian Dziga (Oscar) winner for Best Animated Feature, Mykyta Kozhumyanka (The Dragon Spell) – Ukraine has a long and rich history of animation. It looks like they’ll have a new film to join them after Animgrad Studio’s Mavka: The Forest Song wowed audiences during a pitch at Bordeaux’s influential Cartoon Movie festival.

Let’s get this out of the way right now – if you are a foreigner that lives or spends any amount of time in Ukraine, you have to see Bitter Harvest. The Canadian-made movie about the Soviet-manufactured famine in Ukraine in the 1930s has polarised the critics, but that shouldn’t stop you from this cinematic treatment of a subject integral to Ukrainian-Russian relationship that is not widely known in the Western world. The film tells the story of two star-crossed lovers struggling to survive the Holodomor, a genocidal famine in Ukraine caused by Joseph Stalin’s collectivisation policies. The film labours to be as meaningful as other cinematic treatments of horrific wartime atrocities, such as Schindler’s List’s take on the Holocaust or The Pianist’s portrayal of the Warsaw Uprising. Bitter Harvest doesn’t quite live up to it’s subject matter though, reminding viewers more of Passendaele – another Canadian wartime movie about a famed World War I battle. Both movies have $20 million budgets and plots that, despite the important subject matter, fail to sufficiently impact viewers. Despite this – or perhaps because of it – the films are required viewing. Good or not – Bitter Harvest is a must-see movie.

Ukrainian women have long been acclaimed for their physical beauty. Even in the Soviet days, women from Ukraine were considered the most beautiful of all the socialist republics. What is too often overlooked is that the Ukrainian woman is far more than just a pretty face. She must wear several masks – sometimes all at once. With the nation mobilised and many men off fighting a war in Eastern Ukraine, the roles of Ukrainian woman have become even more amplified.

More than half of the international undergraduate community studying at Polish universities hails from Ukraine
The number of foreign students enrolling at Polish universities continues to grow year-on-year and currently includes representatives of 157 countries. The largest single group comes from Ukraine and totals 30,589, representing 54% of the total number of foreign students currently studying in the country. This unprecedented growth in the Ukrainian undergraduate community is the product of the current domestic instability caused by Russia’s hybrid war in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but it also stands as testament to the growing reputation of Polish institutes of higher education.

It’s been 25 years since Ukraine finally achieved independence and there are no shortages of ways to celebrate the occasion. Festivals, exhibitions, parties, music and dance events – it seems like everyone has found their own way to mark this momentous achievement. So we here at Lviv Today figured there was no better way for us to celebrate than to mark the greatest achievements that the country has put on display in Ukraine’s first quarter-century. It’s not so easy to break down 25 years of a nation into just 25 moments, so we’ve broken them into 5 broad categories: Culture, Technology, Sports, Politics, and Honourable Mentions. Make a list yourself and see how many you can guess? Or go to our Facebook page to let us know which ones we’ve missed. Happy reading and Happy Independence Day!

Every four years a spectacle rolls through Europe – and it’s not of the EuroVision kind. UEFA’s EURO tournament is back and better than ever as it now features 24 of best teams the continent has to offer. Ukrainian football fans know just what’s in store for France, as they remember the excitement of having fans from across Europe visit the country four years ago for EURO 2012. Unlike four years ago, when the team gained automatic qualification for the tournament as host, this time the Blue-Yellows qualified the hard way, and in the process exorcised demons of qualification past.